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A lot of the times, new business pop up and their owners are so excited about this new venture that they think they need to see quick growth on social media. This mindset may lead them to make some rash decisions such as buying followers or spending too much on ads. And it may look impressive to investors to have gained over 1,000 followers in under a month, but savvy investors know there's more to it than that. And the day-to-day consumer probably won't even pay attention.

Let's get this out of the way right at the front: Do not buy followers. No one knows for sure, but it's estimated that about 15% of social media accounts are bots. That's 15% of about 3 billion. So, if you had every bot on Twitter following you, it would bring your follower count up to about 450 million. Sounds impressive, right? It does right up until you realize that bots aren't buying your products or telling any real people about you. You could make the case that the high number of foll…

After a long break from missions, we're suddenly slammed with more missions than we can handle, so I'll be taking over the audio portions of Star Trek: Asterisk this time around. This week, fill your ear holes with our voices as we riff on the season 2 episodes, "Where Silence Has Lease", "Elementary, Dear Data", and "The Outrageous Okona". If you haven't already checked out the written reviews, well they're around here somewhere. I'm sure you'll have a good time reading through those. And now, without further adieu... WE'VE GOT EPISODE SIGN!

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It's been a week since I posted about my intention to start a coworking space. In that time I've done a lot of thinking, a lot of lusting over empty lots, and a little bit of meeting with people who know things. Friday I took a meeting with Ken Evans and Christopher McElveen, two people who have been at the center of the entrepreneurial and coworking communities in Tampa for many years now. We went across the street from my apartment to Armature Works, I grabbed a coffee cola from Commune Coffee and we sat inside in plain view of the doorway to Bay 3, the newest coworking space to pop up in the area.

We talked about a lot of things including what kind of building is ideal, who around town could give me advice, what kind of pricing structure to consider, etc. But the most important thing we talked about was community. Community is the backbone of any coworking space no matter how it begins or how it evolves. Ken recommended that before I even consider investing in a building, …

I have officially surveyed what will be a perfect space for The Green Asterisk Coworking. I know it's a little early in the game to be thinking I've found the one, but, really... I think I've found the one. It's owned by a friend of a friend who used to use it as the home base for his manufacturing business. After expanding and moving out of it, he held onto it for a long time knowing he wanted to do something "cool" with it, but not sure what. When I came around with designs on a coworking and event space, our mutual friend knew that our visions would align perfectly. And they do!

The space is roughly 3,000 sq feet and the owner is so excited to be a part of the space himself that he's willing to make deals that other landlords wouldn't so readily offer. So we've been emailing back and forth about how the offices should be built out and I think we're getting close to finalizing floorplans before construction can begin.

There was an idea to bring together the greatest entrepreneurs Tampa had to offer and put them in the same building. Okay, so many other people have also had that idea. That's not the point. The point is I'm having this idea right now. And it's been swimming around in my head for a while. When I started working in Tampa, I worked at Tampa Bay Wave, a co-working space that, when I started, was housed in the Sykes building and contained and produced a number of successful startups. It now has locations on Kennedy and Channelside. I was only there for the Kennedy location before I moved on and started working from home.

Working from home is great, don't get me wrong. I love the freedom it affords and, as I have just moved into one of Tampa's brand new premier apartment complexes, I have a beautiful place to get my job done. The Pearl offers a business center where I can print things, highspeed, reliable Internet where I can check the tweets, and spacious lounges with…